11.03.2017

Twenty million people face imminent death from starvation and famine. Many more will suffer and die from disease. These are the people that Trump is targeting.

The Trump administration has banned people from Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Syria, and Iran from travelling to the United States. Three of those countries are identified in a new United Nations report as epicenters of the greatest humanitarian crisis since the end of the second World War. Without immediate aid, twenty million will die of hunger.

The following are excerpts from a report presented on March 10 to the United Nations Security Council by the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Stephen O’Brien.

Yemen. “The largest humanitarian crisis in the world …. Today, two-thirds of the population — 18.8 million people — need assistance and more than 7 million are hungry and do not know where there next meal will come from. That is 3 million people more than in January. As fighting continues and escalates, displacement increases. With health facilities destroyed and damaged, diseases are sweeping through the country. …”

South Sudan. “More than 7.5 million people need assistance, up by 1.4 million from last year. About 3.4 million people are displaced, of which almost 200,000 have fled South Sudan since January alone. … More than one million children are estimated to be acutely malnourished across the country; including 270,000 children who face the imminent risk of death should they not be reached in time with assistance. Meanwhile, the cholera outbreak that began in June 2016 has spread to more locations.”

Somalia. “More than half the population — 6.2 million people — need humanitarian and protection assistance, including 2.9 million who are at risk of famine and require immediate assistance to save or sustain their lives, close to 1 million children under the age of 5 will be acutely malnourished this year. In the last two months alone, nearly 160,000 people have been displaced due to severe drought conditions, adding to the already 1.1 million people who live in appalling conditions around the country.”

The report also says that 7.1 million people in Nigeria and the Lake Chad region, and 2.7 million in Kenya, are severely food insecure. Those figures will increase rapidly in coming months.

Twenty million people face imminent death from starvation and famine, and many more will suffer and die from disease. Without major international action, the situation will get worse. The report calls this “the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the United Nations” — that is, since 1945.